The Power of Search Engine Rankings

I think it goes without saying that proper search engine optimization is one of the best, most cost effective means of marketing one’s business, product or service today.  Just as the old cliché about the three most important keys to success for any traditional, brick and mortar type business are, “location, location, location”, the same can be said in the new world of internet business.  Only this time, the ‘location’ is all about the SERPs, or Search Engine Results Pages.  The person or business who has the best position in the SERPs (i.e. the best location) for a quality key word, is going to get the lion’s share of the visitors.

If you don’t believe me, think about the old Yellow Pages (remember when those used to be the key to getting your business found?!?!)  Remember how many companies named themselves things like “AAA Aardvark Plumbing”?  It wasn’t because they had a fondness for the long-nosed, ant-eating mammals.  It’s because such an awkward name would put them at the front of their section of the book since it was all alphabetized.   Knowing all too well that people are inherently lazy, it was worth taking that name simply because a significant number of people won’t bother to look past the first result they find.

Do you know the difference in the likelihood you’ll get someone to click on your website if you’re in the #1 position as opposed to the #7 position?  The first ranked page will get somewhere around 42% of the clicks, while the seventh ranked site will only get approximately 3% (remember that even if you’re #1, not everyone who is searching for that term will click on your website – or any website for that matter.  That’s why the top spot still only gets about 42% of the clicks and not 100%).

Positions 2 through 6 get the following percentages of clicks respectively: 12%, 8%, 6%, 5% and 4% (if you want to get even more precise, the exact percentages were as follows, from number 1 to number 7: 42.2%, 11.9%, 8.5%, 6.1%, 4.9%, 4.1% and 3.4%).

Do you realize what the cumulative improvement is as far as the likely number of clicks you’ll receive for each step up in the SERPs your website makes?  Let’s take a look and see.

To make things easier, let’s use round numbers.  We’ll look at the number of clicks a site would be likely to get for each 1,000 searches for a given keyword.  So for example, if a certain keyword is searched for 1,000 times per day, the site sitting in the number 7 spot could expect to get about 34 clicks per day (3.4%).  The 6^th ranked website would get 41, which is a 20% improvement in number of clicks.  The 5^th ranked site would get 49 clicks, which is nearly another 20% improvement over spot #6.

As we move up the page, the improvements just keep on coming.

Fourth position garners a 24% increase in the number of clicks over its’ next closest competitor below it.  Jumping from 4 to 3 gains a 39% increase in clicks, while going from 3 to the number 2 spot you’ll see an additional increase of 40%!  And what about going from number 2 to the promised land of the #1 spot?  You’ll get approximately 254% more clicks at #1 than you would at the #2 spot!

By the way, did we mention that ‘location matters’???

Something else to keep in mind is that these numbers are cumulative.  So how much of a difference is there in the number of clicks expected between the number 7 spot (which isn’t so bad remember… you’re still on page 1 after all), and the coveted #1 spot?  How about this…  Try this number on for size: approximately 1,138%!

Of course, getting great positioning in the SERPs won’t guarantee anything; you still need to have a great product or service and offer it at a competitive price.  That is just common business sense.

However… even if you have the greatest offering in the world and you offer it at the greatest price while delivering tremendous value to the customer, they have to be able to find you first!  And that is what proper SEO is all about.  A good SEO Specialist will help get your website found.

Helping businesses discover what the people are actually searching for, and not just the keywords the business owner thinks potential customers should be searching for in their particular niche (in other words, proper keyword research).  From there, making sure that that business’ website content is properly optimized for those keywords so that they gain top position in the search engines is what will get you climbing towards that top spot in the SERPs, with all those massive incremental improvements each step of the way.